Haiti earthquake of 2010large-scale earthquake that occurred on Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2010, on the West Indian island of Hispaniola, comprising the countries of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Most severely affected was Haiti, occupying the western third of the island.

The earthquake hit at 4:53 PM, some 15 miles (25 km) southwest of the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince. The initial shock registered a magnitude of 7.0 and was soon followed by two aftershocks of magnitudes 5.9 and 5.5. More aftershocks occurred in the following days, including one of magnitude 6.1 that struck on January 20 at Petit Goâve, a town some 35 miles (55 km) west of Port-au-Prince. Seismologists asserted that minor tremors would likely persist for months or even years. Haiti had not been hit by an earthquake of such enormity since the 18th century, the closest in force being a 1984 shock of magnitude 6.9. A magnitude-8.0 earthquake had struck the Dominican Republic in 1946.

The earthquake was generated by the movement of the Caribbean tectonic plate eastward along the Enriquillo–Plantain Garden strike-slip fault system, a transform boundary that separates the Gonâve microplate—the fragment of the North American Plate upon which Haiti is situated—from the Caribbean Plate. Occurring at a depth of 8.1 miles (13 km), the temblor was fairly shallow, which increased the degree of shaking at the Earth’s surface. The shocks were felt throughout Haiti and the Dominican Republic as well as in parts of nearby Cuba, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico. The densely populated region around Port-au-Prince, located on the Gulf of Gonâve, was among those most heavily affected. Farther south the city of Jacmel also sustained significant damage, and to the west the city of Léogâne, even closer to the epicentre than Port-au-Prince, was essentially leveled.

The collapsed buildings defining the landscape of the disaster area came as a consequence of Haiti’s lack of building codes. Without adequate reinforcement, the buildings disintegrated under the force of the quake, killing or trapping their occupants. In Port-au-Prince the cathedral and the National Palace were both heavily damaged, as were the United Nations headquarters, national penitentiary, and parliament building. The city, already beset by a strained and inadequate infrastructure and still recovering from the two tropical storms and two hurricanes of August–September 2008, was ill-equipped to deal with such a disaster. Other affected areas of the country—faced with comparable weaknesses—were similarly unprepared.

In the aftermath of the quake, efforts by citizens and international aid organizations to provide medical assistance and food and water to survivors were hampered by the failure of the electric power system (which already was unreliable), loss of communication lines, and roads blocked with debris. A week after the event, little aid had reached beyond Port-au-Prince. It was estimated that some three million people were affected—nearly one-third of the country’s total population. Of these, up to two million were left homeless. In the devastated urban areas, the displaced were forced to squat in ersatz cities composed of found materials and donated tents. In the second week of the aftermath, many began streaming into outlying areas, either of their own volition or as a result of governmental relocation programs engineered to alleviate crowded and unsanitary conditions. Looting—restrained in the early days following the quake—became more prevalent in the absence of sufficient supplies and was exacerbated in the capital by the escape of several thousand prisoners from the damaged penitentiary.

It was estimated that some three million people were affected—nearly one-third of the country’s total population. Because hospitals had collapsed in affected citiesBecause many hospitals had been rendered unusable, survivors were forced to wait days for treatment and, with morgues quickly reaching capacity, corpses were stacked in the streets. The onset of decay forced the interment of many bodies in mass graves, and recovery of those buried under the rubble was impeded by a shortage of heavy-lifting equipment, making death tolls difficult to determine. In the days following the quake, the Red Cross estimated that 50,000 had died, while some Haitian government officials speculated that casualties might reach into the hundreds of thousands. Further deaths were expected, as serious injuries went untreated in the absence of medical staff and supplies.

Humanitarian aid was promised by numerous organizations, spearheaded by the United Nations and the International Red Cross as well as other aid agencies, and many countries in the region and around the world sent doctors and relief workers and supplies. The U.S. military provided considerable support in the form of equipment, logistics coordination, and personnel.